There had long been rumors as to how, exactly, winds were made in Equestria. It was known that pegasi could create winds, but the winds that blew on their own remained a mystery. Cloudsdale Weather Corporation didn’t have a wind department in its weather factory, but wind maps and diagrams could always be found among the production notes and archives.
There have been a lot of theories proposed: a secret contract with the Wendigoes, dark magic involving the sacrificing of naughty foals, or the breathing of an elder god deep within the Everfree Forest, captured and enslaved by ancient pegasi.
The truth was a lot more mundane than those stories created to scare off little children.
And, to clarify, a wind department did exist, but it was true that it wasn’t at the weather factory.
Scootaloo was nearing the end of her school year. As a pegasus who hadn’t, it usually meant taking the final flight test.
“Rainbow Dash, you’re here?”
“Hey, Thunderlane. Yeah, I’m here for my sister.”
“Your sister? I thought she… you know…”
“She’s here for her friends.”
“Ah, of course. You hear that, Rumble? ...Rumble?”
Rumble was pacing around a few distances away from him, frantically glancing left and right and unable to stay still. He looked at the other participants and the numbers on their flanks, and as the numbers below the one in his flank disappeared one by one through the stadium door, his pacing and glancing got more frequent.
“Is he okay?”
“He’s been nervous about the test. Maybe Scootaloo can give him some encouragement?”
“Of course she can! Scoots! ...Scoots? Ah, there she is!”
Scootaloo came out of nowhere and nudged Rumble’s shoulder. “Rumble! Aren’t you excited?”
Rumble jumped. “Wait, I’m not ready! I mean, uh—Yes!” He forced a smile. “I’m very excited! Look at how excited I am.”
Scootaloo snickered. “What’s the matter? You’re not afraid of failing, are you? I mean, you’re Thunderlane’s brother! Being a great flyer is in your blood!”
Rumble’s smile vanished as Scootaloo’s sentence finished, replaced by a panicked expression. “Exactly! I’m supposed to be a great flyer!” He dropped on the floor and covered his face with his forelegs. “Now I’m going to disappoint everypony when I fail the test!”
Scootaloo paused. Then, she reached out and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Rumble, you’re going to be fine. Trust me. Even if you fail today—which you won’t—there are still a few days to take the test.”
Rumble took a peek from under his hooves. “What if I fail the test every time?”
Scootaloo rubbed the back of her neck. “Uh, you can still take next year’s test?”
“What if I fail next year’s test too!? I’m going to get deported! Or—or sacrificed to the Wendigoes! Or—”
“Mushed into rainbow juice?”
Rumble blinked. “Now that I said it out loud, it does sound a little ridiculous.”
Scootaloo stared at him with half-lidded eyes. “You think?”
Rumble stood up and took a deep breath. “It still doesn’t make it easier to think about.” He paused. “Anyway, why are you here?”
“To help calm down ponies like you.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“No, why are you really here?”
Scootaloo let out a long sigh. “In case you forgot, helping ponies with their future is kind of already my job.”
“Oh.” He scrunched his eyebrows. “But do ponies really pay you though?”
She stared at the floor. “Yes, but, well, we’re kind of being too good at it that we’ve stopped having repeat customers, and there haven’t been any calls for a month.”
“Oh.” Rumble looked away. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry.” Scootaloo gave him an excited grin. “That’s why Rainbow’s going to take me to the Wind Mill tour!”
“The Wind Mill tour? Isn’t that a tour for pegasi who failed the test?”
“Yes! But with Rainbow Dash!”
“Why are you so excited about it? It’s a tour for ponies who failed.”
“But with Rainbow Dash!” She coughed. “And also she told me I can get a part-time job there.”
“Really? I mean, no offense, but—”
“Yeah, it’s the only weather job that doesn’t really need you to fly. You just have to be a pegasus to do it.” Scootaloo glanced at the pony glaring at them through the door and nudged Rumble in his ribs. “It’s your turn. Good luck.”
Rumble came out of the door with a huge grin on his face and lots of sweat on his coat. He did well. The exact numbers would come out later today, but his face showed just how relieved he was.
Scootaloo relayed a towel from his brother. “See? It wasn’t that bad!”
Rumble laughed. “Oh, no, it was way worse!”
Scootaloo scrunched her muzzle.
Rumble wiped his face before saying, “Yeah, it was way harder than I expected. But I did it!” He raised a hoof, and Scootaloo bumped it with her own. “So, what now? You’re going to wait until all the participants are gone?”
“That’s the plan. And then the tour.”
Rumble tapped his hoof several times on the floor. “So, uh, is it okay if I join you on the tour?”
“What? Why? You did well, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but now you made me realize I’ve never truly known how winds are made.” He looked away. “I always thought that the Wind Mill was for sacrificing foals who failed the test.”
Scootaloo tried her hardest not to laugh. “Well, it’s alright if you want to join the tour, but don’t you have plans for today?”
“My brother’s going to have a Wonderbolt session soon.” He looked around to confirm that his brother had already left the stadium. “I was supposed to go back to our parents’ home by myself and spend the day doing… nothing.”
“Alright then, if you don’t mind waiting here for a while.”
And so they waited a while. They waited for a long while, too, since Rumble was somewhere at the beginning of the list. At some point, the two were surprised by the sudden loud snore from Rainbow Dash. At another point, they somehow managed to get a backgammon board. They eventually managed to understand how to play the game, but it was just as the last pegasus entered the test. They managed to play a single game before he came out with a similar grin to Rumble’s.
Rainbow was woken up by Scootaloo, then stretched her wings and let out a long, stretched yawn. “I guess it’s only you two for today?”
“Fortunately.”
“Alright, let’s get going!”
There was a blue cart just outside the stadium with a white cyclone symbol emblazoned on each of its sides. Scootaloo and Rumble climbed on it, while Rainbow strapped herself to the harness. The cart was big enough for the two to sit comfortably apart, but won’t be enough for four foals together. It was dusty and rickety, but the long shared seat was still fluffy and sank slowly under the two’s weight.
Rainbow took off without warning, and Scootaloo cheered while Rumble screamed. They giggled after calming down and continued enjoying the ride with the occasional hustle with clouds Rainbow purposely flew through.
Their destination: Canterlot’s second Wind Mill. The ride went quickly before Canterlot’s unique architecture could be seen more clearly. Rainbow flew high above the city and aimed at the peak.
As Scootaloo looked at the curious building near Canterlot Mountain’s peak, she saw that it was nothing like a windmill. It looked like a glass dome with antennas. There were a little less than a dozen pegasi gathering at the entrance, wearing the usual white coats and hard hats of weather workers.
Rainbow landed smoothly in front of the gathering ponies before striking a pose. Her grin went wider as the crowd applauded and cheered her name.
A white pegasus stallion with a clipboard came at her just as she finished unstrapping herself from the cart and greeted, “Rainbow Dash, it’s been a while.”
“Breeze. Yeah, I’ve been a little busy.”
“For the past ten years?”
“Uh—”
Breeze laughed. “Don’t worry, I understand. There’s not much for you to do around these parts after Fluttershy left. How is she, by the way?”
“Oh, she’s doing awesome! She made her own animal sanctuary, have you heard about it?”
“I’ve heard about an animal sanctuary but didn’t know it was Fluttershy’s. It paid her much better than we did here, I hope?”
“Not by much after all the additional taxes, but she loves it.”
“Simply beautiful.” He shifted his attention to the two foals sitting awkwardly in the cart. “And who might you be, little ones?”
“I’m Rumble, uh, Sir.”
“I’m Scootaloo!”
“And she’s the world’s most awesome sister!”
Breeze’s ember eyes lit up at the mention. “Your sister, you say? I hope she’s not here because you pushed her training too hard.”
Rainbow rubbed the back of her neck. “Uh, well, I mean…”
“Nah, I just can’t fly.”
An awkward silence accompanied her statement before Rainbow shouted, “She’s still awesome, and don’t you forget it!”
“Rainbow, calm down. Is it a medical condition?”
“Yes. I forgot the term, but I know she can still work here.”
Breeze smiled at Scootaloo. “Well then, I’m sure you’ll find this place very welcoming if you ever decided to work here.” He turned around toward the Wind Mill, revealing to Scootaloo and Rumble that his left wing was no more than a little stubble. “You can take my word for it.”
“What happened to your wing?” came the voice of Rumble. In turn, he got a harsh nudge from Scootaloo. “What?”
“I crashed at terminal velocity in my final flight test. Yes, it was painful.” He gestured for them to follow him. “Come now, we’re going to begin operation soon.”
Rumble grabbed Rainbow's foreleg before she could get inside. "You worked here?"
She snickered. "Yeah. Crazy, right? I worked here because Fluttershy was too scared to come to work and always needed a friend by her side. Not that I'm complaining; they paid me pretty well for working two weather jobs at the same time."
As everypony came inside the dome, the door closed by itself with a soft click. There was a tremor lasting a few seconds, then, the entire building rose.
Wind Mills were cylindrical buildings made mostly of glass and cloud walls. The top part of the building, called the glass dome, was kept above ground level outside operational hours. The bottom part, called the collet, was kept below ground at those times. This style of architecture was discovered to be an artifact of pre-unification times when the collet was made of iron and the dome was nothing but an open platform. The collet would be kept submerged inside a pool of fish oil to prevent rusting. The material was later replaced with industrial cloud walls after its invention, which put the fish oil pool out of use. It also made pegasi with less than satisfactory flying abilities to be able to do the pushing and spinning duties instead of just the milling.
Scootaloo watched with wonder as the ground receded rapidly from view.
The door unlocked, and half of the workers flew out. The other half, including Breeze, went through a trapdoor on the other side down to the collet. He urged Rumble and Scootaloo to come, while Rainbow flew out with the others. A single pegasus mare stayed within the dome next to a bunch of fancy gauges and diagrams.
The collet felt much smaller on the inside than Scootaloo first thought. There was a giant pressure tank in the middle that took much of the available space, and they were left with a narrow passageway to access the windows to the outside. The windows opened inward, curiously enough.
Scootaloo peeked out of a window and waved excitedly at Rainbow Dash, pushing at the Wind Mill to move it, who waved back.
Rumble whispered at her, “This doesn’t look like a windmill at all. Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
She shrugged. “We’ll just have to see.”
Breeze walked up to the window next to them. “We’re going to start milling in a few minutes. Would you like to try it out?”
Rumble laughed nervously. “I don’t think I can. What am I supposed to do?”
Breeze opened the window and unfolded his wings outside. “When you fly—or, at least, try to fly—you get that feeling of grabbing something with your magic and then immediately releasing it, yes?”
Rumble thought for a while. “Yeah. They taught us about it at flight school. It’s something about pressure?”
“And my wings can’t release it fast enough, which made me flightless.”
Breeze nodded. “Yes. But don’t worry, because now you don’t have to release it that fast. You hold onto that feeling, then put it inside the tank.” He demonstrated this by staying completely still for a few seconds while looking outward, then looking at the tank while staying completely still.
The foals looked at him in confusion.
Breeze sighed as he folded his wing. “Just try it and you’ll understand.”
Rumble tried first. He put his wing outside the window, then, just like flying, used his magic to grab… something. Instead of pushing it away, he held to it, then did it again.
Breeze quickly said, “Don’t hold too much. You’ll blow yourself up.”
“What!?”
“Not literally, but it’ll be an unpleasant experience.”
Rumble stared at his wing, currently holding a bunch of something. “Uh, how do I put it away?”
“Just direct it to the tank. It’ll eat it up automatically.”
And so he did, and he could feel the thing he was holding being taken by the tank which felt like when you tried to feed a chicken but not knowing when it’ll peck.
Scootaloo asked him, “How does it feel?”
“It’s, uh, sudden. But it doesn’t hurt or anything.” He scooted away from the window. “You wanna try it?”
Scootaloo put her wing outside, then, like how Rainbow taught her, grabbed into what she called ‘atmosphere’. She then directed it at the tank, which took it as soon as she let go.
Breeze smiled. “That something that you grabbed is what is called ‘pressure’. Wind Milling is doing exactly that, all over Equestria. We cut away some pressure from the atmosphere, and when the time comes, the areas with higher pressures will make wind by itself to the lower pressure areas. Many pegasi do it without even noticing how it works, but on the global scale, it is important to understand this, and to measure exactly how much you should grab.”
“And how do I know how much to grab?”
“Practice.” He extended his wing again, then, he said, “Here, give me your wing.”
Scootaloo extended her wing toward Breeze, and he gave her the pressure he was holding. It felt a lot less than what she took earlier.
“That is exactly 1 millibar. We’re going to shave that much for the duration of the shift just to maintain a gentle breeze over Canterlot.”
“Hey, that’s your name!”
“No, Gentle Breeze is outside. I’m Liquid Breeze.” He continued before she could reply, “No, I don’t know any other Breeze except Zephyr Breeze, whose acquaintance I’ve only recently stopped regretting.” He unconsciously ran a hoof over his graying light blue mane. “No, I’m not related to any pegasus named Breeze. I do like gentle breezes, though. Any other breeze-related questions?”
Scootaloo and Rumble shook their heads.
“Good.” He looked outside, finding that they were already a few kilometers away from Canterlot. “We’re going to start milling now. Who would like to go first?”
“You go first, Scoots.”
“Alright!”
“Remember, whatever you do, never shave more than the target. If you can’t cut away the pressure precisely, go somewhere less than 1 millibar for now.”
Scootaloo extended her wing outward, followed by the rest of the cutters inside the collet. Two workers outside and Rainbow changed their positions to a tangent to the collet, while the rest stayed in their pushing positions.
“Oh, and also, we’re going to spin a lot. There’s a bag just below the window if you want to puke.”
The three pegasi started pushing the collet to spin. The dome itself didn’t spin, and the mare inside gave directions to the pushers to where they have to go. Scootaloo kept her right wing outside like the other millers and grabbed what she thought was 1 millibar of pressure in every spin, then put it inside the tank. The gesture came naturally after some time, and with Breeze’s help, she started to get a better feel for the amount of pressure she took.
They went on for about an hour before ending up where they began. As the collet stopped spinning, Scootaloo collapsed.
“Was it tiring?”
“Not physically. But… exhausting.”
Breeze, who looked no different from before, chuckled. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Do you do this every day?”
“Yes, we do. The night shift will put the pressure we milled back to where they were so unintended hurricanes won’t happen at night. The younger millers are only given jobs on the weekends, though, and we change shifts every eight hours.” Breeze looked up as he heard the faint directions from the mare upstairs. “We’re going to move a ring outward. Would you like to try, Rumble?”
Rumble moved toward the window. “I’ll try. How much should I grab again?”
Breeze took a millibar of pressure and gave it to Rumble. “That much.” He raised his eyebrow as Rumble weighed the pressure in his wing. “Say, you seem like a great flyer. Did something happen?”
“Huh? Oh, no, I didn’t fail the test. I just wanted to know how winds are made.”
“Just curious, huh? That’s… new.” He coughed. “Well! Let’s get started.”
The Wind Mill was put back to its station after milling away three more rings after Rumble’s try. The third ring was milled by three millibars, and Scootaloo tried to help for only half the ring before Breeze stopped her from overexerting herself.
“It’s not exactly hard, but it drains my magic pretty fast,” Scootaloo explained to Rainbow. “How about you? You like flying all day like that, right?”
Rainbow ruffled her wings. “Meh, it's still boring even after all these years. No excitement, no speed, just a very long stroll over Equestria. But, hey, that’s why even Fluttershy can get this job.” She turned her attention away toward Rumble. “You can find your way back home, right?”
Rumble nodded. “I’m going back to Cloudsdale for now. I’ll be back in Ponyville after my Brother’s Wonderbolt session. See you, Scoots! Rainbow!”
Rainbow waited for Rumble to fly away before asking Scootaloo, “So, what do you think about the job?”
Scootaloo tapped on the ground a few times. “Well, uh, I think I still need to think about it.” She grinned at Rainbow.
Rainbow ruffled her mane. “Sure. For now, though, you want to take the fastest train from Canterlot to Ponyville?”
Scootaloo nodded excitedly.
“Awesome! Hop on!”
And so, Scootaloo rode on Rainbow’s back while she flew the entire length of the railway from Canterlot back to their Cloudominium in Ponyville.
